Local organizations have teamed up to head off a looming transit crisis at year's end and try again to convince lawmakers that dedicated funding is the long-term solution.

Sustainable Pittsburgh, an environmental-urban growth group, brought together civic, government and business officials at the Regional Enterprise Tower this week to launch the "Transportation Funding Initiative."

More than 300 organizations and individuals have signed up as "endorsers" of the plan, which also includes persuading the state to address an increasing backlog of bridge, highway and other infrastructure deficiencies as part of comprehensive transportation legislation.

"No one is going to raise a hand and say please tax me to fund transit," said Alex Scuilli, a senior vice president of Mellon Financial Corp., whose engineering background led Gov. Ed Rendell to appoint him to the Transportation Funding and Reform Commission.

Mr. Rendell formed the nine-member panel to investigate all facets of transportation funding, operations and management and to make recommendations to him and lawmakers in November. The move came mostly in response to funding crises at the Port Authority and Philadelphia-based Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority.

"I can't remember a more difficult problem to solve in my career," Mr. Scuilli said, revealing the committee is looking at the gas tax, sales tax, highway tolls, motor vehicle registration and fees or some combination to address transportation-funding shortages.

The gap between needs and available money has been estimated at $22 billion over the next 25 years for the 10-county region overseen by the Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission, said J. Bracken Burns, a Washington County commissioner and SPC chairman.

"The more people who speak up about it and the louder they say it, the easier it might be for people hard of hearing to get the message," Mr. Burns said. He alluded to politics involved in the transportation funding problem by pointing to $833 million in federal highway funds transferred to rescue transit systems for the past two years.

Seventy percent is going to SEPTA, covering six counties; 22 percent to the Port Authority, the nation's No. 15 transit system that basically serves only Allegheny County; and 8 percent to the other 60 counties.

Questions about inequities in distributing transportation money are part of a problem that officials concede they need to overcome, so the focus has been extended beyond transit to a more inclusive three- point program:

Adopt a "Fix It First" policy to address the current backlog of highway and bridge repair projects identified in the long-range plans.

Develop a permanent and reliable source of funding for public transportation in urban, suburban and rural areas.

Support higher funding for community redevelopment, including old industrial sites, and bring local infrastructure "to a good state of repair per the Keystone Principles," a policy governing growth, investment and resource conservation.

Court Gould, executive director of Sustainable Pittsburgh, suggested the urgency of the transit-funding problem. He has called 2006 "a critical window of opportunity" for achieving goals that have been proposed in the past but left to languish in the state Legislature.

More information is available at www.sustainablepittsburgh.org